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Nov 10, 2023

Actress Erika Alexander returns to her northern Arizona roots for street dedication

Actor Erika Alexander is 52. Every storyteller knows heroes need origin stories. Superman came from Planet Krypton. Erika Alexander came from northern Arizona. Alexander is an actress, writer,

Actor Erika Alexander is 52.

Every storyteller knows heroes need origin stories.

Superman came from Planet Krypton. Erika Alexander came from northern Arizona.

Alexander is an actress, writer, producer, director and co-founder of the production company Color Farm Media. She introduced herself with this comparison to the iconic DC character.

An artist of color, Alexander has lived a life steeped in stories and storytelling, and she’s proud to say her own story begins in first Winslow, then Flagstaff.

Actress, writer, producer, director and founder of Color Farm Media, Erik Alexander sat down with the Daily Sun's Sierra Ferguson to talk about her childhood in Northern Arizona, and what a return to Flagstaff this weekend means to her.

“I start every story telling people how I was born and where I was born and what it was like to be there. I think it informs a lot of who I am,” Alexander said.

Long before she starred beside Queen Latifah in the 1990s sitcom "Living Single," Alexander was a kid playing with her siblings in the shadow of the San Francisco Peaks.

“I was born in Winslow and after a few years my family moved to Flagstaff, where I stayed up until seventh grade, and then we moved to Philadelphia, but I am a northern Arizona girl as far as I’m concerned,” Alexander said.

Erika Alexander, age 7, second grade, Ms. Wong's class, Killip Elementary School.

Her mother was an educator, and her father was an itinerant preacher. Alexander’s family lived in a hotel on Route 66 in Winslow before they moved to Flagstaff.

This weekend, the street where that hotel was located will be officially renamed “Erika Alexander Way” in her honor. A block party celebration set for Sunday has brought Alexander back to northern Arizona.

When she was in middle school, Alexander’s father’s connection to the Flagstaff German Lutheran community would open the door to a seminary school program in Philadelphia that moved the family east — where Alexander’s acting talents were discovered.

Erika Alexander, filmmaker camera training, is shown in this photo from 1998.

Alexander was 14 when an independent film, "My Little Girl," put out a casting call in Philadelphia. She remembers trying out for the role, and when the smoke cleared she was cast as Joan in the 1986 film.

“When I was discovered at 14 I had just barely left Arizona. I think the reason why I stuck out at all was that I was different than all of the other little girls that were there. I had more of a quiet nature. I had a more independent and free-thinking mind," Alexander said. "I also was an oddball. I wasn’t the person that you might find in film or television. I wasn’t standing out with a huge personality, but I had tons of personality. I think when you do film and television, it’s your quiet nature and what grounds you is what pushes you forward in film."

She believes she was more grounded because of a childhood she describes as “free range, before it was a thing.”

She remembers chatting with horny toads, walking to school and running through fields of sunflowers. She recalls the taste of flavors of fry bread and sauerkraut, the sounds of powwows, and dark skies filled with stars. Those memories grounded her.

Winslow, Arizona: Sammie and the Rev. Robert Alexander's children, clockwise beginning upper left, Erika (1), John (7), Carolyn (3), Robert (5).

“I went into that audition thinking there’s no way they’re going to pick me. They’re going to look right past me. The thing that made me me is exactly what they were looking for. I think that’s because I grew up in Arizona,” Alexander said.

After that first film, Alexander’s career as an actress was go for launch.

She toured with the Royal Shakespeare Theater and worked on film, TV and some miniseries. She was acting in an off-Broadway production in New York City when she was spotted by Camille Cosby — or so the story goes.

Advertisement for movie "My Little Girl," which was Erika Alexander's first film and she was cast after having been discovered in Philadelphia, 1985.

“I’m told she told Bill Cosby about me. Next thing I know, he created the role of cousin Pam for me,” Alexander said.

By the time she was 23, she was strutting on screen in an orchid purple skirt suit as “Maxine Shaw, Attorney at Law” in "Living Single." The show premiered 30 years ago this week.

Her career is filled with notable performances in films such as "De Ja Vu," "Get Out" and "Wu-Tang: An American Saga." As she’s grown as an actress, she says her identity and sense of self have been a guiding star.

Erika Alexander poses for a photo while working as a New York City showcase theater director in 1992.

“In film ... you’re 10 times bigger than you are [in person], so to be big is not necessarily the thing, but to be quiet and have a sense of self and be able to receive and listen is the thing that makes people film capable and compatible. I have that in spades, but I didn’t know that,” Alexander said.

She found that she was different because of her upbringing in Arizona.

“Powwows and the things I learned about culture before I even knew it was a thing -- there was this sense that beyond my color, how I think or how I talk, there are things that inform me. Arizona is one of those things. Hopi and Navajo culture is one of those things. Mexican culture is one of those things. Being part of the German Lutheran Church was one of those things,” Alexander said.

This week, she has returned to Flagstaff for a series of events organized in part by Flagstaff's Lived Black Experience Project.

On Saturday morning, she’ll be leading a youth acting workshop for young people ages 14-18 at the Hal Jensen Recreation Center in Sunnyside.

Erika Alexander, age 10, plays horseshoes at a Flagstaff park during Lutheran summer retreat in 1980.

“I started when I was younger. I can talk about being a teenage actor, as well as leading into an actor that’s quite a bit older and also being an actor of color," Alexander said. "Right now, we have all kinds of things happening in film and television, but I think people need to know we’re looking for you. Whatever’s making you different -- whether it’s your disability, your age, the way you think -- is exactly what the world needs.”

Alexander’s career isn’t just about acting. As the co-founder of Color Farm Media, she’s made documentaries such as "Good Trouble," which is about Georgia Congressman and civil rights pioneer John Lewis; "The Big Payback," about Sheila Jackson Lee and America’s first tax-funded reparations bill; and the true-crime podcast "Finding Tamika" about missing black women and girls and the way that mainstream media handles their cases.

This courtesy photo shows Erika Alexander in a baby photo in Winslow.

“We are so glad we have that as our calling card to talk about activism, storytelling, centering on marginalized communities, women, people of color. Trying to say that inside the new world of media and the new face of media, we’re going to have to have a more diverse conversation and we’re going to have to have storytellers of all types to tell the human story. That’s what Color Farm Media is about,” Alexander said.

She was set for a Friday screening of "The Big Payback" on the Northern Arizona University campus.

“It’s a big deal to say we’re going to be coming back and having a homecoming to talk about what it is to have grown up in Arizona. But also to then show the world the types of stories that we’re making and have the screening? I don’t think it gets any better,” Alexander said.

Alexander told the Arizona Daily Sun she’s thrilled to be back in northern Arizona, describing the diverse people and landscapes as critical in shaping the person she is.

“This is a big deal. I am very honored. My family is honored. My mother is coming with us. My brother, who is a Philadelphia police officer, and his three daughters and wife are coming. He went to Coconino High School,” she said.

The filmmaker will cap off her trip to Flagstaff with a tea party celebrating her mother on Sunday. After a trip to the Grand Canyon, she’ll be back to her work in storytelling.

“I do think my success and the things that make me different are because people can’t quite put their finger on what it is that makes me different, and I say it’s because I’m from Arizona. It’s because I’m from a place where you don’t have an idea of who I am or what I am, but I do. I know who I am. I am fry bread. I am powwows. I am sauerkraut. I am all these things. They are mixed in me -- a true melting pot, yet coming from the mouth and the face of this little black girl," Alexander said. "I love that I defied the odds and defied gravity. I believe the mountains and Arizona help me defy gravity. It helps me to be centered. It gives me courage to move forward.”

For a full schedule of events Alexander will attend this weekend, visit colorfarmmedia.com/arizona.

Sierra Ferguson can be reached at [email protected].

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Staff Reporter

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Due to a reported two to three inches of rainfall in a short amount of time, water up to three feet in depth has reached State Route 64.

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